Barry Wolfert ’88 said he felt the “immediate effects” when President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allowed healthcare subsidies to expire, was passed in July 2025. That’s when he decided to run for Congress.
“The upcoming expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies are a huge component, because it’s expensive to be insured … if I’m struggling, there’s got to be a ton of other people that are going to be struggling a lot worse than I am,” Wolfert said.
Hailing from Marietta, Georgia, Wolfert is running in the safely Republican 11th District, which backed Trump by 23 percent in the 2024 general election. The last Democrat to win a general election in such a red district was now-former Rep. Kendra Horn (D-O.K.), who won a 25 percent Trump district in 2018.
Wolfert stated that his campaign priorities are focused on affordability — from student loans to healthcare and grocery costs — because those issues are the ones “affecting real people every single day,” including himself.
"What I hope to do when I get to Congress is to focus on these key issues of trying to find solutions that will bring some more balance to the way this country taxes people and finances itself,” Wolfert said. “We have the money, we just don't have the right priorities."
Wolfert stated that if elected he could support a version of Medicare for All, a proposed single-payer healthcare system that would provide the U.S. with universal and government funded healthcare. At the same time, he also wanted to maintain a freedom to choose private healthcare.
Wolfert graduated from the Nolan School of Hotel Administration in 1988, and described his time as “a challenge,” because Cornell was such a large school compared to the small, private high school he attended. He is currently a realtor, and founded a north Atlanta-based real estate team under the global Keller Williams real estate company.
Though originally from Pomona, New York, Wolfert moved to Georgia to work at the Ritz Carlton Company, where he says he “fell in love with Atlanta.” After a brief stint in Washington, D.C., Wolfert returned to the Atlanta area where he has lived for 32 years.
Wolfert told The Sun the five-term incumbent, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-G.A.), had not done “anything of significance” that impacted Georgia’s 11th district, “or frankly, much else.”
He added that he had previously attempted to attend one of Loudermilk’s events, specifically, a Dec. 13 roundtable discussion featuring the representative. Wolfert discovered that the event was cancelled and Loudermilk was a “no-show.”
“The guy doesn’t show up, literally,” Wolfert said. “A gentleman came up to me with a piece of paper and asked, ‘are you here for the event later with the congressman? It’s been cancelled.’ After ten years in Congress, I don’t see any return on our investment.”
Loudermilk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Sun.
A self-described political moderate, Wolfert said that his campaign is not “about adding to my resume,” as he said he would not have run if not for the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Wolfert also described a tense 1980s Cornell campus when he was a student, fraught over the issue of divestment from South Africa. He explained that witnessing the “shanty towns” protestors set up as encampments on the arts quad were his “first exposure to what a movement was all about.”
And, though Wolfert believes the Trump administration’s decision to freeze funding for Cornell was “crazy,” he also said that he “was disappointed that universities did not join together to fight this,” in reference to Cornell and other major universities’ decision to reach a settlement with the Trump administration on Nov. 7.
Wolfert closed with some advice for Cornell students.
“This is the same advice I give my kids: stop and smell the roses,” Wolfert said. Cornell’s biggest strength is its diversity, its size — experience a lot of that. Don’t stay tunnel visioned. Don’t be in a rush. You’ve got a lot of time, but that time speeds up every year. The candle only has so much wick in it; take your time. Breathe.”
The Georgia Primary Election will take place on Tuesday, May 19 and the midterm election will is on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Atticus Johnson is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a senior writer for the News department and can be reached at ajohnson@cornellsun.com.
